Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Eight years ago Dan Rather accused President George Bush of using National Guard service to dodge the Vietnam draft. The story blew up in Rather's face. His documents were fakes. Now, with Bush retired, the true story can be told
Will a growing fund-raising scandal bring down ambitious New York City comptroller John Liu? Out in Flushing, his power base with a large Asian-American community, a lot more is riding on that question than just his career
Review of books on lobbying, by Laurence Lessig and Jack Abramoff. The threat to democracy comes not from bribery, which is rare. It comes from "legislative subsidy", a nice way of saying that the lobbyists get to write the laws
Larry Lessig did well to turn his focus away from Internet policy and towards reform of the US political process. Washington is a "gift economy". Actors there are not generally evil, but their need for money trumps everything else
Terrifically enjoyable read on four-time Louisiana governor and convicted felon, Edwin Edwards. Now out of prison. Author of immortal election quote: "The only way I'm losing is if I get caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy"
For most of the world, it was a tragedy. For many people and companies, it has proved a goldmine. They include Rudy Giuliani, sundry outright fraudsters, and practically everyone involved in the $20bn redevelopment of Ground Zero
"When a married politician appears before cameras and starts babbling absurd lies about some sex something, the person he is really trying to lie to is his spouse. The lies that get told to the public and the press are side-effects"
Larry Flynt has unearthed the sexual exploits of the American political establishment, ignored by history books. Did high libidos affect political decisions? In some cases, yes. Fascinating insight into power, sex and hypocrisy
Records from the 12-year Huckabee governorship in Arkansas "are unavailable, and the computer hard drives that once contained them were erased and physically destroyed as the governor prepared to leave office"
One computer programmer defrauded the Pentagon out of millions, selling anti-spy software that never worked. An isolated case? Recent Pentagon study revealed $285 billion paid in three years to contractors now accused of fraud
Iraqi's extraordinary confession of how he fooled German intelligence officers into believing that Saddam was harbouring weapons of mass destruction. US relied on his account to justify invasion but they never even met him
Wikileaks hasn't damaged diplomacy, rather revealed the troubling nature of an Internet where it is easy "to force Internet intermediaries to drop clients that are not on Hillary Clinton’s Christmas card mailing list"
